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Sunday, March 24, 2013

Professional Writer?

When did you first consider yourself a professional
writer? In the middle of filling out a questionnaire for an upcoming blog tour,
that question brought me to a screeching halt. It was something unexpected, and
I didn’t feel like it applied to me. A professional writer. Professional. Was I
among that list? To me that list includes great fantasy writers like Sanderson,
Tolkien, and Rowling. Was that me? Although Kindar’s
Cure will soon be released as my debut novel, I didn’t really think so.

I looked up the word. –relating or belonging to a
profession. –engaged in an occupation as
a paid job –businesslike, conforming to
the standards of skill, competence, or character –very competent –doing something habitually.

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For some reason, except for doing something
habitually, I don’t feel like I fit those definitions. I haven’t been paid yet,
so I can’t judge if I’ll feel professional when the first (small) royalty check
lands in my lap. There are no reviews from readers on Amazon or Barnes and
Nobles, so I can’t use them to judge if I have skill, competence or character.
The fantasy and science fiction writers’ organization doesn’t accept authors
who don’t receive advances, so I can’t join their professional group.

Possible modesty complex aside, none of those excuses
are the real reason that I don’t feel like a professional. To me the term
professional assumes something more than those definitions. It means you treat
your skill like a business. You perform it for the gain you receive. It implies
a sense of being jaded. But that has never been my idea of writing.

Most writers write because they must, or because
they love to surprise readers, or for the thrill of getting a reader reaction
to their words and sharing a story. Maybe deep down there is also the desire to
be immortal. So feel like a professional—no. To me it’s the thrill of unfolding
a story and having it take me to unplanned places. I hope that never becomes
old. So no, I don’t think I’ll ever feel one hundred percent like a professional.

What are your thoughts? What does it take to be a professional writer? An agent? A publishing contract? What will tip the scales for you?

For me, I think I would consider myself a professional writer at the point where writing is my day job, where it's the main thing I'm being paid to do on a daily basis. I actually can't see myself ever getting to that point, so in the meantime, I consider myself a "working writer" - I write professionally, but I am not a professional writer :-)

LOL - or it's that we have really unrealistic expectations of how much our lives will change at each stage, and when we reach that stage we realize how little our lives have actually changed. As a published author the only change I see (over being unpublished) is that I'm now so busy I'm ready for a nervous collapse and I've forgotten what this "free time" thing people keep talking about is.

I agree with Angie. I will consider myself a professional writer if I'm able to quit my job and support myself through writing. For now, I consider writing as an enjoyable hobby that helps quiet the voices in my head.